I've copied and pasted my responses from a previous debate at another board. I just don't feel like repeating myself on the same subject.
Child Molesters.
I've watched the Woodsman. It's about a pedophile who molested girls between the age of 10-12. He claims he never HURT the girls, but he was still a child molester, and served his twelve years. But he was seeing a therapist, and it came to where he said "When I think of being normal, it means not wanting to hurt those little girls."
There's one scene...he asks an 11 year old if she'd like to sit on his lap. And she said she didn't want to, but that her father asked her all the time. And so Walter (the child molester) asked her if her father asked her when they were alone, if he said odd things when she did, etc, etc, and the girl started and crying....and...and he told her to go home...he..was cured. He was...finally normal in his terms.
So, what I'm saying is, this movie shows the child molester in a different light. It shows that man as someone who is doing something wrong, and in the end knows it, and wishes he didn't have those feelings. Walter was truly sorry he had done the things he did, but he couldn't take them back. Should a man who is already being eaten away inside for what he did be killed for this?
Oh, and go watch The Woodsman, REALLY GOOD MOVIE.
I just really believe in psychotherapy. I have no use for the death penalty, and many child molesters do not kill the children they molest, so really shouldn't get the death sentence for it.
Plus, there's always that tiny iota of a chance they are innocent of their crimes, which is what I constantly refer to. Steven Truscott was almost hanged because the police withheld evidence proving him innocent, and using only the evidence that he could have committed the murder. And that's just one case...soo....yeah.
As for killing a rapist:
If that man has not murdered, why should he die? According to the 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth' way of thinking, if you get to do that to him, YOU must be the one to die. YOU are the murderer.